The Local Church, the Arts, and Shaping the World for Christ · SHAPING THE WORLD •Everyone tries...
Transcript of The Local Church, the Arts, and Shaping the World for Christ · SHAPING THE WORLD •Everyone tries...
Mark D. Harris
MD, MPH, MBA, MDiv
PhD Student – World Religions, SBTS
ThM Student – Christianity and the Arts, SBTS
https://mdharrismd.com/2015/12/10/christianity-and-the-arts/
THE LOCAL CHURCH, THE ARTS, AND
SHAPING THE WORLD FOR CHRIST
OBJECTIVES – ATTENDEES WILL:
• Describe the arts and discuss shaping the world
• Discuss how members of other religions use the Arts to shape the
world to their liking.
• Summarize the history of the Arts in Christian work.
• Describe how the arts help:
• Teach ethics and morality
• Meet human physical and psychological needs
• Build communities
• Reveal the person of God
• Discuss how churches and parachurch organizations today are using
the arts to effectively shape their world for Christ.
THE ARTS DESCRIBED
• Types
• Music
• Visual arts – painting, photography, sculpture
• Architecture
• Literary arts – poetry, prose
• Performing arts – dance, theater
• Description (instead of definition)
• Western aesthetics - “the quality, production, expression, or realm, according to
aesthetic principles, of what is beautiful, appealing, or of more than ordinary
significance.”
• Most of the world – “used to worship God, praise great people, express emotion,
communicate information, make money, and accompany other actions from building
furniture to flying airplanes
• Christian Arts - Art by professed Christians, Art with Biblical or Christian themes, and Art
created for a Christian audience
SHAPING THE WORLD
• Everyone tries to modify their world for their own benefit –food/shelter, work, relationships, religion
• Groups do the same thing - Businesses, governments, other organizations
• Even animals modify their environment to their own benefit
• Shaping the World for Christ means:
• Bringing others to a saving faith in Christ
• Building godliness in current believers and communities
• Shaping the greater society with a Christian understanding of the world
USES OF THE ARTS
• Thought of Western aesthetic – the arts are for contemplation and
reflection.
• Thought of most of the world throughout history – THE ARTS ACT –
they shape the world to the interest of the artist and the community.
SHAPING THE WORLD - THE ARTS USED IN HEALING
AND WORSHIP
• Sri Lankan Sanni Masks
• Mask corresponds to symptom
(headache, fever, etc.)
• Mask used in dance and song ritual
to cure disease
• Christian Catacomb Art
• Christ the Good Shepherd
• Peter and Marcellinus
• Used for worship
HOW MUSLIMS HAVE USED ART TO SHAPE THE
WORLD
Selimiye Mosque, Edirne,
Turkey, 1575 – Architect
Mimar Sinan,
Tapestry made in the Muslim
world by Muslim artist
How can these works of art shape the world for Islam?
HOW HINDUS HAVE USED ART TO SHAPE THE
WORLD
Durga Temple, Fairfax Station, VA
Angor Wat, Cambodia
HOW BUDDHISTS HAVE USED THE ARTS TO
SHAPE THE WORLD
Buddhist temple at
Borobudur, IndonesiaPainting of the
Buddha, Thailand
HOW CHRISTIANS HAVE USED THE ARTS TO SHAPE
THE WORLD
• Early Rome – house churches used simple art such as fish, bread, etc.
• Themes shared with Jewish religion
• Later Rome – Christians taking over pagan temples and adapting pagan art to
Christian themes
• Middle Ages – Christendom culturally dominant in Europe
• Art to reveal God, support Church, exalt kings and control people
• Renaissance and Reformation – Protestant reaction against Catholic
excesses in art.
• Modern Period – Christendom retreating and secularism/liberalism advancing
in the West.
• Except music, Church largely out of the arts
• Postmodern Period – Church rediscovering the power of all of the Arts in
shaping the world for Christ.
USING THE ARTS TO…
• Teach ethics and morality
• Meet human physical and psychological
needs
• Build communities
• Reveal the person of God
THE ARTS TEACHING ETHICS AND MORALITY – PROCESSION TO CALVARY
DISCUSSION
• The painting
• Where is Jesus?
• Who are the red clad men?
• Why is Jesus in 1st century garb and everyone else in 16 th century
clothing?
• Why is the windmill atop the strange mountain?
• What are the bystanders in the picture doing?
• The painter
• Pieter Brueghel (1525-1569), Netherlands
• The times
• Reformation and Dutch Revolt against Hapsburg Spain
• How could this painting shape the world for Christ?
THE PRODIGAL
SON
What do you see?
What do you feel?
DISCUSSION• The Painting
• The bystanders – not seeming to understand
• The prodigal – ragged clothes, shaved head and face, one shoe, the image of pain, poverty, and shame
• The older brother – disdainful, stiff, proud, holding himself apart from the joyful reunion
• The father – embracing, forgiving, left hand larger than right, humbling himself
• The Painter – Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (1606-1669)
• How could this painting shape the world for Christ?
• As Christians, who do we identify with? Whom should we become?
SUSANNA AND THE
ELDERS -
DANIEL CHAPTER 13
• Two voyeurs observe
Susanna bathing.
• They request sexual favors
and she refuses.
• They accuse her at the
council of meeting a lover in
the garden, a capital offense.
• Daniel appears, cross-
examines the elders,
discovers their lies.
• The men are convicted and
executed.
• Justice is served
SUSANNA AND THE ELDERS
GIUSEPPE BARTOLOMEO CHIARI (1654-1727)
What do
you see?
What do
you feel?
SUSANNA AND
THE ELDERS
(UTRECHT
SCHOOL)
What do you see?
What do you feel?
DISCUSSION ABOUT SUSANNA AND THE ELDERS
• What do the various paintings portray?
• How do you suppose the perspectives of men and women would
differ?
• Who are you in the picture?
• What moral lesson does this teach?
• How else could this impact your ministry?
THE ARTS MEETING HUMAN PHYSICAL AND
PSYCHOLOGICAL NEEDS
• Biophilia
• Natural light and outside
greenery (accessible
through large windows)
decrease anxiety,
depression, and negative
thoughts
EVIDENCE BASED DESIGN AND BIOPHILIA
• Fort Belvoir Community Hospital
• Gardens speed healing
• Large nature photographs decrease blood pressure, stress
• National Intrepid Center of Excellence,
WRNMMC
• Traumatic Brain Injury
• Psychological Health
• Healing arts therapy (music, painting,
drawing
• Similar design as FBCH to achieve
similar effects
OTHER MEDICAL FACILITIES
• Cleveland Clinic
• Art displays benefit mood in visitors
• Water features and gardens
improve overall health
THE ARTS BUILDING
COMMUNITIES
• Communities of artists
and communities of art
lovers
• Where do Christians
artists in your area form
communities?
• Sainte Chapelle, Paris - Consider how a
peasant farmer living in squalor could
feel the presence of God in this church
• The Light
• The towering walls
• The echo of the Gregorian Chants
THE ARTS REVEALING THE PERSON OF GOD
• Kreuzberg Monastery,
Germany
• Consider how an illiterate
Christian could learn about the
Passion from the stations of
the Cross
AGNES DEI (1635-1640)
What do you see? What do you feel?
DISCUSSION
• The painting
• The lamb is bound for slaughter
• The whiteness and detail of the lamb contrasts with the indistinct
blackness of the background
• The halo suggests that this is more than just an ordinary lamb
• The lamb is not resisting but passively awaits what is to come
• The painter - Francisco De Zurbaran (1598-1664)
• Spanish, painting for monasteries near Seville
• The times
• Spain was the first modern global empires, “Golden Age to 1659”
• The ongoing Spanish Inquisition
• How could this painting impact your ministry?
USING THE ARTS
TO SHAPE THE
WORLD FOR
CHRIST IN 2017
PITFALLS
• The local church remains a church, not an art studio.
• The arts supplement, they do not replace, the Word in the church.
• Arts can lead to idolatry.
• Pastors and congregants may feel inadequate to use art well.
• Music has been a battlefield in the church for millennia. Visual and
other arts can become the same.
CONCLUSION
• The arts have been used extensively in history for Christian
work.
• The arts help:
• Teach ethics and morality
• Meet human physical and psychological needs
• Build communities
• Reveal the person of God
• Churches and parachurch organizations today are using the arts
to effectively shape their world for Christ.